science

The Uncensored Library

The Uncensored Library is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand The Uncensored Library rather than just read about it. In short: The Uncensored Library is a Minecraft server and map released by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and created by BlockWorks, DDB Berlin, and .monks as an attempt to circumvent censorship in countries without freedom of the press. The library contains banned reporting from the United States, Mexico, Russia, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Brazil, Belarus, Iran, and Eritrea.

Key takeaways

The Uncensored Library belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect The Uncensored Library to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of The Uncensored Library from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Uncensored Library is a Minecraft server and map released by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and created by BlockWorks, DDB Berlin, and .monks as an attempt to circumvent censorship in countries without freedom of the press. The library contains banned reporting from the United States, Mexico, Russia, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Brazil, Belarus, Iran, and Eritrea. An entire wing is given to each country, each containing several banned articles placed in virtual books. The library was released on 12 March 2020, the World Day Against Cyber Censorship. The two ways to access the library are to download a map from the official website, or to connect to their Minecraft server.

Design The library is a large scale project built using a neoclassical architectural style. It is intended to resemble well-established institutions such as the New York Public Library and the Thomas Jefferson Building which houses the Library of Congress, as well as stylistically allude to the authoritarian structures the project aims to subvert. The library uses over 12.5 million Minecraft blocks, with one Minecraft block being equal to one real-life cubic meter in-game.

Format

Each of the ten countries covered by the library, as well as Reporters without Borders, has an individual wing, containing a number of articles, available in English and the original language the article was written in. The texts within the library are contained in in-game book items, which can be opened and placed on stands to be read by multiple players at once. These articles generally discuss censorship, unjust punishment, and other critiques of the writer's government. The interior architecture of each country's room symbolizes each country's unique situation and journalistic challenges. Additionally, the library contains a central room listing the Press Freedom Index and state of freedom of the press of every country covered by the index, and the Mexican section contains memorials for reporters who were killed due to their writings. In March 2020, the library contained over 200 different books. In 2026, a wing of the library dedicated to press censorship in the United States was added. A room in the library covers the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on journalism, containing books on 10 countries (Brazil, China, Egypt, Hungary, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Russia, Thailand and Turkmenistan) to show how reporting of the virus in each country had been affected.

Reception After launch, the project went viral across social media platforms and has been featured in various media outlets such as Agence France-Presse, the BBC, DW News, CNBC, CNN, TechCrunch, The Verge, Gizmodo, Engadget, Mashable, PC Gamer and Scene World Magazine. The project also received a 2022 Peabody Award for the Interactive category. When awarding The Uncensored Library with their Peabody Award, Peabody's website described the library as "a monument to press freedom and an innovative back door for access to censored content."

Notes

References

External links Official website Video story on the library by DW (June 2023)

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with The Uncensored Library

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what The Uncensored Library claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to The Uncensored Library before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about The Uncensored Library ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of The Uncensored Library

In research: The Uncensored Library appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses The Uncensored Library in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: The Uncensored Library is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Censorship in Brazil, Censorship in China, Censorship in Egypt, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for The Uncensored Library outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study The Uncensored Library in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what The Uncensored Library means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain The Uncensored Library out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is The Uncensored Library in simple terms?

Why does The Uncensored Library matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study The Uncensored Library?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on The Uncensored Library.